Fourplay

"Fourplay" is an unsexy film with four parts forming a loosely connected whole about orgasms and our fantasies. From the obvious to the bizarre to the sickening the film transgresses all things sugary nice and culminates with just too little foreplay for the actual main attraction.

The four-part film features four situations all familiar, albeit vaguely, and translates the awkwardness, the uncertainty and the intrigue involved in physical relations. The realness and unedited anti-glamour tries to fill the portrayals of fantasies but manages to barely bring ideas about sex and sexuality to the precarious rim.

The first part is in Skokie, where enthused choir-member Marcy offers to watch her crush Gail’s nightmare dog, Mira, while Gail and her husband Roger leave town for the weekend. Marcy with her religious boundaries and Jesus obsession feels so strongly for Gail that she starts to transfer these desires onto the pooch. A night of heavy sweaty dreams with Mira leads to an orgasm and some heavy guilt as she pathetically searches on Google for ’"zoophilia" the follow day.

In Austin, Lily and her boyfriend Kai are trying to enjoy a night of sex at home when Lily’s sister and her baby ruin the mood. Somehow, the partners end up in an adult section of a DVD store where Lily slips behind a curtain into a red light arcade. Their fantasies of publishing a book, having children, and owning a restaurant get confused with their desire for anonymous sex. In their sexual encounter, an interruption with a "no condom" comment ruins the mood and the scene falls apart.

A silent part three plays off in Tampa, where a confused-looking Louis ventures into a very pink flamingo public bathroom where he starts to fantasize about the potential sexual partners he could have right there in the toilet. This leads to a campy YMCA line up of the Cop, the Red Indian, the Cowboy, and soon leads to Marie Antoinette, Hitler, and Moses all in a rather cumbersome orgy. The lack of size in Louis’ penis becomes the main focus of the short and his imaginary friends blow up in his face, literally.

In San Francisco, a cross-dressing sex-worker responds to a call from the wife of a quadriplegic gentleman. The bedridden man on a ventilator cannot communicate and with a very "The bell and the butterfly" style communication from Tom happens by eye blinking only. Alia, her escort name, then allows him to pleasure her with only his toe while corny violin music ushers her to orgasm. The connection between silent Tom and Alia is electrifying and then story line gives an almost authentic twist to this film.

The film lacks tenderness and the explicit sex, that is an overexposure without valid emotion, gives it an amateurish zero substance residue. Stereotypes and attempts to tie pointless story lines and unrelated content together mean the film shocks but with an uncomfortable thwart of weak revolt.

Based between New York and Cape Town, Daniel Scheffler writes about socio political and travel matters and is working on a memoir. Follow him on Twitter @danielscheffler.

Leave it to a six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald to add some major theatrics to the scene playing out over social media in response to Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's signing of a "license to discriminate" bill Thursday.